


Neon Challenge

by Blackwatch_McCree



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, commission, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 00:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7913503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackwatch_McCree/pseuds/Blackwatch_McCree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamison will never cease to surprise Zenyatta, but perhaps Zenyatta should first learn to stop underestimating him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neon Challenge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheRealJesseMcCree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRealJesseMcCree/gifts).



> Written as a commission for GoldStarKeptin, with the prompt "Junkrat's explosive tendencies are getting the team into trouble. He needs to tone it down, and Zenyatta offers to help." Thank you for commissioning me!

Despite everything, Zenyatta is still convinced that Jamison will not be his most difficult student. Oh, but he tries to be, with his stubbornness and refusal to cooperate, antagonizing Genji until Zenyatta was sure he couldn’t prevent a fight even if he wanted to. But he reminds himself that despite all appearances Jamison is young still, and with his youth comes an impatience and energy that cannot be contained by anyone except his own efforts.

Not that the rest of the team hadn’t tried. Angela’s medicine only turned him sluggish and frustrated on the battlefield, when he needed to be alert most of all. Lucio’s music swung him too much one way or the other; either he was dead asleep on the floor or scheming even more grandiose explosions and plans. 

Zenyatta is well aware that he’s just about the last person Jamison would go to. He makes the offer anyway, because he’s also aware he’s one of the last people even willing to help; most everyone else has written Jamison off as a lost cause by now. Jamison may curse and complain - he may point fingers and snap insults about omnics, but at the end of the day he knows that he either learns to control himself or risk being thrown back out of Overwatch; after several months of comfortable living, with no bounty hunters after his head, returning to a criminal life on the run is hardly enticing. 

So he shows up out of the blue one day to meditation, grumbling and twitching like he’s allergic to Zenyatta’s presence. Zenyatta greets him as Genji glares, and Jamison sticks his hands in his pockets like a petulant child. His reluctance is hauntingly familiar, and Zenyatta remembers with fondness his first meeting with a certain other student. By far his most difficult one.

“Good morning, Jamison.” Zenyatta says. “How are you today?”

“You said you could help me,” Jamison responds, sullen. He doesn’t want to ask for help. Few people do, especially among this proud legion of heroes. One’s own pride is one of the most difficult foes to conquer, one of the greatest obstacles to overcome. If they must, they will get it later; first, he must accept the help.

Zenyatta nods. “I would be glad to have you join us for meditation,” he says. Genji can’t help the indignant mechanical  _ vhirr _ from kicking up as his head snaps up. Jamison sneers, because all three of them know that he’s not going to join in meditation. 

“Well I wanted you to know, there ain’t no way a bot can help me,” Jamison says. There’s more vitriol in his voice than usual. His time, and everyone else’s patience, is running out.

Zenyatta thinks back to the most recent mission reports. Specifically, he thinks about the collateral damage, the buildings leveled and the roads torn up, the houses shaken to the ground, windows blown out. It’s a small grace that the town was already abandoned when Talon decided to move their base there -- Zenyatta has no desire to skim over the civilian casualty numbers that may have been caused by Jamison’s… enthusiasm. 

Overwatch’s reformation has been condemned since its first public announcement, and its continued practice of recruiting criminals with hefty bounties only adds fuel to the critic’s fire. If there’s anything they don’t need right now, it’s more arguments that people can make against the organization. Overwatch is already a mere shadow of its former glory; a tenth of the funding, twice as much distrust. If they want this to be successful, they have to look good to the public eye, and, shockingly, employing a wanted criminal who blows entire cities to smithereens does not make for a great press release. 

There’s not much Zenyatta can do about Jamison’s past. But he has never liked focusing on the past either; he prefers to look towards the future, and what they can do to quell these… explosive tendencies. He holds no illusions that Jamison may never end up liking him. He holds no illusions that, in fact, Jamison might end up hating him more. But if his methods work, then regardless of personal feelings, Zenyatta will consider it a success. 

“Perhaps not,” he finally responds. “But I am willing to try.” 

“How?” Jamison asks. There’s suspicion in his eyes and distrust in his snarl. The ripples of the Omnic war will never fully settle; it is too ingrained in human fear, the most instinctive emotion. Zenyatta has been fighting this uphill battle since the Shambali was founded. He knows all-too well that the first step in reconciliation must be taken by him.

“I would like to see your work on explosives,” Zenyatta says. Jamison can’t help his eyes lighting up at that, which means that his passion for explosives is greater than his hatred of robots. It’s a small start, a baby step at best, but it’s something. 

“I dunno…” Jamison says, still guarded. “My bombs are a trade secret. How do I know you’re not gonna… not gonna steal the design, huh?”

With a small tilt of his head, Zenyatta responds, “I suppose you will simply have to trust me. As I am trusting you not to detonate them in my presence.”

Genji looks alarmed. Perhaps that wasn’t the best thing to mention. Zenyatta doesn’t miss the dangerous glint in Jamison’s eye, but he says nothing of it.

“All right then, it’s a deal!” Jamison proclaims. “I’ll give ya a demonstration tonight, Nine o’ clock on the sharp, in me lab!” 

Zenyatta nods. “I look forward to it,” He says, and watches Jamison hobble away.

As soon as Jamison is out of earshot, Zenyatta hears another mechanical  _ vhirr _ as Genji shakes his head. Zenyatta listens to his complaints, even though he already knows how they will go. Genji argues that this is nothing but a waste of time on someone who hardly considers him (them) as individuals, much less teammates. Zenyatta argues back that worldwide peaceful relations between humans and omnics will never be achieved if he cannot help even one young man. This time, he reminds Genji that Aleksandra was the same way when she first arrived to Gibraltar. He also reminds Genji that two nights ago, Aleksandra went out of her way to pick up specialty ingredients to help them cook. 

“Aleksandra is different,” Genji says, sullen. “Junkrat is a lost cause.”

“Nonsense,” Zenyatta replies, with all the confidence in the world. “There is no such thing.”  

\-- 

When Zenyatta meets Jamison at nine, he asks Genji to stay behind. Not that he doesn’t appreciate his student’s concern, but because he would not ask Jamison’s trust without first showing his own. 

Jamison’s lab is a small attachment to Winston’s, mostly just a place where he can mix chemicals together without endangering the rest of the crew. To Zenyatta’s surprise, it’s actually fairly well-organized, if a little cluttered. Scrap metal litters the floor; the sink is filled with emptied beakers. But the bottles along the shelves are all properly labeled, lined up in a neat row, and the countertops are clear. Honestly, it’s more than Zenyatta expected.

But if there’s anything Jamison puts his heart into, it’s his explosives. This shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, and Zenyatta reminds himself not to underestimate the people around him; Overwatch may be a shadow of the great organization it once was, but it is still a collection of extraordinary individuals, and Jamison would not have been invited in the first place if his ability wasn’t exceptional. 

“Welcome to where the magic happens!” Jamison greets him, swivelling around in his chair. He looks around, confused. “Your pointy shadow not here?”

Zenyatta shakes his head. “I have asked Genji not to accompany me this time.”

Jamison squints and looks around again, as if not fulling believing him. “All right…” he says, suspicion in his voice. It’s probably best to dwell on the subject; Zenyatta gestures to the bottles on the shelves.

“Is this where you develop your explosives?” He asks.

Jamison immediately perks up. “Oh yeah, I promised ya a demonstration!” He says. He starts grabbing bottles off the shelf, seemingly in no discernable order. But Zenyatta knows there must be a method to this madness, and simply stands aside and watches. 

Jamison likes to talk while he works. He’s explaining the process behind the bomb, about the kind of reaction caused by the mixture of two chemicals, about the ignition of gas from the slightest spark. He talks about how a gas explosion is more destructive than a gunpowder one, how different kinds of fires smell, how you can tell what exactly blew up from the thickness and texture of the smoke. Napalm and gasoline are boring; dynamite and chemical explosions are far more fun.

Zenyatta decides it’s best not to question Jamison’s definition of “fun.” He listens quietly to the explanation, engages only with a small comment or question every now and then. The conversation turns from destruction to decoration; Jamison likes fireworks almost as much as he likes watching cars blow up. He explains which chemicals cause which colors, how to control the rate a firework heats up in order to make shapes, how certain combinations lets the colors change in midair. 

The entire time, Jamison is working with his hands, faster than Zenyatta would have thought. He doesn’t use any measuring tools, just knows with mechanical precision exactly how much of each chemical he needs. Even as his voice peaks in barely-contained excitement, he controls his movements, making sure none of the liquid spills or mixes too violently. He is as much an engineer as Satya; as much a scientist as Mei-Ling. His methods are simply just more… unconventional. 

This is the key, Zenyatta realizes, to Jamison learning to control his own frenetic energy. As much as he revels in destruction, he’s also fascinated with creation. Building his own equipment to blast through concrete. Carefully mixing his own bombs to blow up a pipeline. Harmony and discord. There is no such thing as a lost cause.

Zenyatta looks at the finished product held proudly in Jamison’s hands. A plan begins to work in his head. 

\--

A week later, the next time they meet, Zenyatta brings along a small puzzle in his hands. It’s something the Shambali give to their newest students to demonstrate the concept of personal change; a metal ball made up of several interlocking parts - the goal is to take the ball apart and put it back together into a cube shape. Destruction and creation. 

Zenyatta thinks it will help Jamison focus. He does not expect Jamison to solve it within five minutes; within fifteen, Jamison is dismantling and remaking it repeatedly, the puzzle changing shape from sphere to cube back to sphere in almost a fluid motion. Within twenty minutes, Jamison is bored again and fidgeting, and Zenyatta realizes he has, once again, underestimated his student. 

He engages Jamison in talks about explosions again (thankfully, Jamison is more than happy to return to that topic.) Zenyatta may not be a human psychologist but he understands the explosions to be a kind of comfort, a cathartic outlet, though he won’t be so presumptuous as to assume for what. The overenthusiasm surfaces when Jamison becomes addicted to the destruction he’s causing, but that’s what Zenyatta is here to help with. 

At the same time, it must be a delicate balance. Jamison’s demolition knowledge is his asset to Overwatch. Zenyatta’s puzzle is figuring out how to reign back anything beyond the point of necessity, though determining that may be the more difficult part. 

As the humans say, back to the drawing board.

\--

The next few weeks are Zenyatta testing. More complicated physical puzzles (which Jamison solves with ease), logical conundrums (which Jamison solves in his own, if roundabout, way), and philosophical questions (which Jamison has surprising insight to, though Zenyatta has learned by now that nothing should surprise him). When Jamison gets bored, which he inevitably does, because nothing ever stumps him for very long, the meetings turn back into conversation. Talks about explosions turns into talks about Australia. Things get tenser here; perhaps Jamison remembers he is, in fact, talking to an omnic, and the mood shifts. But Zenyatta listens just as well to this story as he has all others, does not cringe away from Jamison’s vivid descriptions. 

The story of Australia’s irradiated Outback is scattered across newspaper articles and holovids, but hearing it from someone who witnessed it firsthand is a different experience entirely. In terms of human-omnic hostility, Australia is worse than London; it’s a place not even the Shambali have yet dared to visit, and it’s one of the few places that Zenyatta has never seen.

But listening to Jamison talk about it, Zenyatta almost feels like he’s really there. He feels the sun beating down on his back and the sand in his joints. He sees the shimmer of air against the desert ground, the red and yellows of a dust-filled sky. For a radioactive warzone, where resources are so few that lives are taken for a few pieces of scrap metal, Jamison almost sounds fond of it. 

“Barely had enough powder to make a bomb half this size,” he proclaims, proudly, holding up his latest creation. “But I made it work - took out a dozen bots  _ and _ the Ute they rode in on.”

The brag gives Zenyatta an epiphany. None of the things he tried before - metal puzzles and logical riddles - could challenge Jamison, because Zenyatta cannot offer anything to challenge him. It’s simply out of his hands, and the sooner he understands that, the sooner he truly begin to help. 

\--

Zenyatta pulls up Jamison’s combat statistics for the past few missions. He points out the high usage of materials, activates a holomap of the battlefield with the areas of destruction outlined, doesn’t miss the gleam of satisfaction in Jamison’s eye when he looks at the giant swaths of area covered in red. 

“That’s impressive, innit?” Jamison says, tracing his fingers over the outline of the destroyed area.

“You can do better,” Zenyatta replies, which is the closest thing to harsh he’s ever said. 

He expects Jamison to recoil against the criticism, but instead he just squints and asks, “Whaddya mean?”

“You bragged about twelve takedowns with one bomb earlier,” Zenyatta says. “Yet in this mission, you used forty-six bombs for seventeen takedowns. You make each of your bombs yourself, and each, with its casing and wiring, the chemical mixtures you spoke about, takes about an hour. Forty-six hours for one mission. You would not have that kind of time in Australia. You can do better here.”

_ Now _ , Jamison turns hostile. “Yeah? Whaddya know about me methods, eh?” He snarls like a defensive cat. “Whaddya care?”

Zenyatta folds his hands and looks at the map. “What I know is that for you, orchestrating destruction is a passion unmatched by any other I have witnessed. You take great pride and effort into creating your tools and measure the fruits of your labor by the ruins you leave behind.” 

“... And?” 

“And I understand that environmental damage is inevitable in your line of work. But I also believe, and you may disagree if you wish, that the better measure of the success of a bombadier’s work is determined primarily by the destruction done to his opponents, not just to his surroundings. After all, any random person with a stick of dynamite or a gallon of gasoline can destroy a building - it is the mark of a  _ professional _ who deals the most damage to his targets while leaving his surroundings intact.”

Jamison squints. “This another one of your puzzles?”

With a hum, Zenyatta considers his words carefully. “Somewhat. In our time together, I have come to realize that there is nothing I, or anyone else, can offer to truly challenge you. You abilities are beyond that. I have come to learn that the only one who can measure up to you… is yourself.”

There’s silence for a moment, a rarity in Jamison’s presence, so he’s either furious or stunned. Zenyatta glances back at the combat statistics and simply hopes for the best. 

But of course, Jamison surprises him, as always. “Th-Thanks,” He says, staring down at the map like a nervous youth. “That, uh, that’s about the nicest thing anyone’s ever said ‘bout me.”

“I would not have said it were it not true. Everyone has seen the capability of your tools. Now you must show them your skill as a warrior.” 

Jamison stands at attention and salutes. Zenyatta feels a swell of pride.

Now, they’re cooking with gas. 

\--

There’s remarkable improvement within a month. Far faster than Zenyatta would have expected (but then again, this is Jamison, who shatters expectations like thin, brittle ice on the surface of a pond.) Surrounding damage areas grow smaller and smaller on the holomaps. Jamison’s mission assignments take him from smaller towns to bigger cities. He begins to work better with the others. He does particularly well when Zenyatta is assigned along with him. 

He may still be a show-off at heart, but at least now it’s more directed, more focused. Wanton destruction has shifted to planned precision; Zenyatta sees the same bomb that would have leveled a building instead blow a perfectly round hole in the hull of an armored vehicle. He watches as a single thrown grenade knocks an entire defense system offline. Jamison might still rail against the bots they’re fighting, but he’s also reached down to help up a civilian omnic who was pushed to the ground. 

Genji witnesses the gesture but says nothing of it. Zenyatta may not be the bragging type, but even he cannot help a savored comment, “Jamison and Aleksandra are not so different after all.” 

(Genji bows in deference. At least he’s willing to admit when he’s wrong.)

And as a result of using fewer bombs, Jamison has been spending less of his time in the lab making them. He’s begun to spend more time with the rest of the team - video games with Hana, though he mostly watches and comments. Audio mixing with Lucio, creating rhythm and cadence from cacophony. He’s even joins them in meditation once,  _ without _ a fight with Genji. Jamison didn’t particularly enjoy the experience, but that’s fine. He at least tried it, and Zenyatta appreciates the effort most of all. 

Zenyatta knows that his feelings towards Jamison have changed from pride in his student to awe at his abilities. He cannot pinpoint exactly when this change happened - he has always looked forward to his talks with Jamison, but it is only recently that he feels warmth in his chest at the other’s presence, that the sound of certain explosions no longer causes anxiousness within him, but comfort. 

And then… 

Jamison approaches him one night with a bomb. It’s large, almost unwieldy, and certainly heavy from the way Jamison is carrying it. 

“I got somethin’ to show ya,” he says. There’s giddy excitement in his voice, like when he used to watch an entire swath of grassland go up in flames, and for a moment Zenyatta worries if this might be a reversion to old ways. As Morrison in particular likes to say, old habits die hard. 

But Zenyatta would be a fool if he has not learned by now that Jamison will surprise him, in some way or another. He follows Jamison out to a field away from the base. It’s a new moon tonight, the night sky peppered only by the stars. 

“This,” Jamison says, setting down the bomb with a heavy  _ thunk _ , “is for you. As, uh, thanks, I guess. For all the help.”

Zenyatta wonders if he should be concerned about the nervousness in Jamison’s voice. Usually he burbles with uncontained confidence. Zenyatta does not miss how Jamison’s fingers fumble as he tries to flick a lighter on. Before he can ask whether they should move away first, the bomb’s wick begins to spit sparks. Jamison hops next to him and points towards the sky with a grin.

“You’re in for a treat, Zenny,” he says. 

The wick disappears into the bomb and suddenly it’s rocketing upwards, leaving a blazing trail of flame in its wake. The scream as it flies through the air is so loud his audio receptors nearly reboot. But Zenyatta stays firmly where he is, following the bomb as it soars higher and higher, until the fiery, blazing trail suddenly disappears.

He counts to five but loses the bomb against the darkness of the night sky.

“Jamison -” he starts.

“Wait for it,” Jamison says. 

In a flash, the entire sky explodes into color so bright and vibrant that it almost looks like the sun’s come back up; red light blooms outward in a ring so wide it looks like it might reach both sides of the horizon. Inside the ring, blues and greens burble forward, neon pinks and purples collide in the air, a fountain of gold sparks right above where they’re standing. A breathtaking show that fizzles and sparks and leaves aftertrails of white smoke streaking through the inky night backdrop. 

Zenyatta looks over to Jamison, who is grinning and puffing his chest out. An entire fireworks display bundled in one bomb. A puzzle of timing and chemical combinations to make shapes and color changes. Creation and destruction. Harmony and discord. His cheeks have a slight blush as he looks in pride at his work. A metaphorical lightbulb goes off in Zenyatta’s mind.

This display is not only a gift; it is a declaration. It is a thanks for guidance past and a promise for challenges future. It is Jamison showing off in his favorite language: explosions, light, the smell of sulfur through the air. It is his passion presented, in the most intimate way he could think of.

Zenyatta reaches forward and takes Jamison’s hand. Their fingers interlock as they watch the fruit of Jamison’s labor. Art written across the sky. 

No such thing as a lost cause. 


End file.
